Generic Republicans Trounce No-Name Democrats

Colin McEnroe

Last week Gallup released the results of what is called a "generic ballot" poll which contained very depressing news for Democratic candidates, who turned out to be less popular than Great Value Luncheon Meat, Sam's Choice Diet Ginger Ale and Price Chopper Sliced Cling Peaches.

No, that is not how a generic ballot poll works. In this poll, voters are asked whether they would vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate for Congress if they knew absolutely nothing else about either candidate, including the candidate's name or whether the candidate was even technically human.

One of the good things about a poll like this, of course, is that it closely approximates the state of mind of most of the people being polled, who tend to know a lot more about Snooki vs. The Situation than about Debicella vs. Himes.

One of the bad things is that this Gallup poll allowed people to respond if they were registered (as opposed to likely) voters. The only requirement beyond that was that they understand that some kind of difference exists between the two major parties. So, to a certain degree, this is like poking a sleeping manatee with a stick and asking it to wake up and explain whether time travel is theoretically feasible.

Pollster: "So, for Congress, would you vote for a Republican or Democrat?"

Person: "What's Congress?"

Pollster: "It's the highest legislative authority."

Person: "We don't get Congress here. We switched to Direct TV."

Pollster: "Look, just pick one of them."

Keep in mind that Gallup, in a 1999 poll related to the Declaration of Independence, found that 24 percent of Americans were not able to name the country we declared independence from.

This is why generic ballot polls are usually not all that reliable and why, for that matter, they tend to not to show pronounced differences. They're often pretty tight, with spreads like 47-44. One of the wonders of polling is that, even when presented with a completely abstract, non-binding, impersonal choice based on nothing but vague prejudice, roughly 10 percent of people will say they have not made up their minds.

If you asked respondents to choose between Good and Evil, the same group of people would say they were undecided. The only exception I know of was when Gallup asked people whether the Earth revolves around the sun or whether it's the other way around. Only 3 percent had no opinion. Disturbingly, 18 percent said the sun revolves around the Earth. That's an important number to remember the next time someone is telling you that Glenn Beck is brilliant.

However, in the last generic ballot, Safeway Generic Republican Candidate beat Food Lion Store Brand Democrat 51 to 41, the biggest margin for the GOP since the poll was first tried in 1942.

This is bad news for Democratic candidates, especially if their opponents are named Shaw or Kroger.

For Republicans, the message is clear: You can only lose ground by having a specific identity, so stay generic.

Senate candidate Linda McMahon got that memo. Last week, CTNewsJunkie.com quoted her on Medicare and Social Security: "Here's my position: I really do think we're going to have strengthen all of our entitlement programs, but that's not really a discussion for the campaign trail."

Exactly! Why would you tell anyone on the campaign trail what your positions are? You might as well give your Social Security number to a strange man with candy.

Two days later, The Connecticut Mirror quoted her on foreign policy: "And Afghanistan, we are re-evaluating I think, you know, we need to re-evaluate where we are on Afghanistan to make sure the strategy that was put in place a couple of years ago is still the right strategy to be there." Boom! Nailed it!

It's hard to say what Democratic candidates should do. One option would be to make commercials in which other old-line Democrats denounce them. Chris Dodd: "Joe Courtney never fit in with our party." Nancy Pelosi: "There's something weird about Chris Murphy. I'm not sure he's really one of us."

The other option is to stand up for the same core values we had in 1776 when we declared independence from China.

Colin McEnroe appears from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays on WNPR-FM (90.5) and blogs at http://blogs.courant.com/to_wit. He can be reached at Colin@wnpr.org.